Human Resources Division:
TOOLKIT FOR RU LINE MANAGERS/SUPERVISORS
HOW TO DEVELOP A WORK-SAMPLE ASSESSMENT
AS PART OF THE RU RECRUITMENT & SELECTION PROCESS
FOR SUPPORT STAFF POSTS
Copyright: HR Division, October 2012
1
What is a work sample assessment?
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
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A work-sample assessment is an internationally recognised assessment tool used in the employee
selection process.
It measures the competencies of a specific job. Competencies = knowledge, skills and personal
attributes needed for the job. These are listed in the section on job requirements in the job
profile.
The assessment is based on typical tasks of the job. The job applicant does the assessment to
demonstrate whether or not s/he has the relevant competencies for the job e.g. a secretary who
is required to do typing in the job does a typing test (work sample assessment) to assess his/her
typing skills (competency).
Why use a work sample assessment?
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This method has very high levels of validity i.e. it is very good at measuring the competency for a
job accurately and is a good way to predict if someone can do (or not) that element of the job e.g.
the cooking test for a cook is a good way of assessing his/her ability to follow a recipe, measure
our ingredients accurately, use basic conversions, apply cooking techniques etc.
This method is also very reliable i.e. it measures the competency consistency e.g. the painting
assessment measures painting skills time after time.
In contrast, interviews typically have low validity and reliability.
When does one use a work sample assessment?
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One should always use the best selection tool (e.g. interview, work sample, presentation, and
referee reports) to measure the required competencies in a valid and a reliable way.
Some competencies just cannot be assessed through an interview e.g. written communication
skills, typing skills, attention to detail. A work sample is a more accurate way of testing these
competencies.
Work samples are an excellent way of testing the technical skills in a job e.g. cooking skills for a
cook, painting skills for a painter, design skills for the web designer, organisational skills for a
manager.
The work sample can be used together with other methods of assessment i.e. the results of the
work sample are combined with the results from the interview to achieve an overall picture of the
competencies of the applicant; OR; The work sample can also be used as a “hurdle” in a selection
process i.e. only those applicants who meet a particular level of competency in the work sample,
proceed onto the next stage of the selection process.
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OK, so I want to use a work sample assessment, now what?
For each recruitment and selection process for a support staff post:

A job profile with job requirements exists. These job requirements include the education and
experience requirements as well as the competencies for the post.
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Before a strategy meeting of the Selection Committee, your HR Generalist will meet with you and
explore your views on the recruitment and selection process. If the use of a work sample is a good
idea, your HR generalist should be suggesting this to you.

The proposal of the recruitment and selection strategy is then tabled with the Selection Committee at
its first meeting and agreed on.

Where the Committee agrees that a work sample assessment will be used, it will fall to the
manager/supervisor, together with HR, to develop this tool and to conduct the assessment of
applicants. Specifically, it is the manager’s responsibility to design the work sample assessment and
then to assess candidates and to feed back the results to the Selection Committee. It is the HR
generalist’s responsibility to ensure that the assessment meets the necessary quality requirements
and is a fair and effective assessment and to where necessary, assist with the administration of the
assessment.
Are there work sample assessments that I can use?
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For jobs that are common across the University e.g. administrator roles, the HR Division will have work
sample assessments available. These are developed with industrial psychologists.
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There may also be some work sample tests for particular aspects of a job e.g. for the IT components of
a job or the finance components. These work samples are being or have been developed with the IT
and Finance Division.
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The HR Division will also keep copies of assessment used to date to develop a library of possible
assessments.
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How do I make sure the work sample assessment is fair?
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Make sure that the exercises in the assessment are typical of the job and they are substantive
elements of the job. Typical tasks of the job can be used e.g. if the manager needs to be able to
discipline a staff member, you would write this exercise using a typical scenario and ask the applicant
to tell you how they would go about dealing with this situation. If you want to test the cleaner’s
knowledge of hygiene requirements, ask them to show you how they would go about cleaning a room.
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Be clear on what competencies are being measured and that these are competencies required for the
job e.g. if you want to assess someone’s numerical ability, know what kind of numeracy is required for
the job and make sure the assessment tests these particular numerical skills.
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Make sure that the exercise is pitched at the right level e.g. don’t require someone applying for a
supervisor job to solve problems that managers typically resolve.
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If you have external candidates, make sure that the exercise does not require knowledge of Rhodes
procedures and policies. This creates an unfair advantage for internal candidates. Also be careful that
your assessment does not benefit those staff already working this area. You need to test the generic
knowledge and skills for the job, not the knowledge of the processes and procedures within a
particular department.
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Make sure your instructions are clear. If some exercises are more important than others and you want
candidates to finish the important exercises, you must tell the candidates to do those exercises first. In
the absence of a clear instruction of what to do first, second etc., you can’t penalise an applicant who
does not do the exercises in the order required.
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Make sure that the exercises (questions, scenarios) are clearly and concisely worded. Where possible,
get someone to do the actual assessment so that you can test that your questions or instructions are
not ambiguous.
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Watch out for “double jeopardy” in your assessments e.g. you ask an applicant to do an Excel spreadsheet to test their numeracy skills and the applicant does badly. Is this because of their Excel spreadsheet skills or their numeracy skills? You will need to have another exercise that is not Excel dependant
to test their numeracy skills.
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Make sure that the average person can finish the assessment or finish a reasonable number of items in
the test. In some assessments, too much work is deliberately given so that the person identifies the
priority areas and works under pressure. But if you are not measuring prioritisation skills or time
management skills, then rather make sure that the assessment can be completed by the average
person. Remember that candidates will be nervous and allow for this in the time given.
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Remember that no-one is perfect. You are looking for the candidate that best meets the competencies
for the job and therefore the needs of your department.
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How do I make sure the work sample assessment is effective?
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Decide on whether to use the work sample assessment as a hurdle or together with other assessment
tools. The way to decide this is to ask yourself: would I hire the person if they can’t do x? (x being the
skills you are measuring) e.g. would I hire a secretary who is not computer literate? If the answer is
“no”, then why bother to interview them? You are wasting the candidate’s time and the Selection
Committee’s time. In this case, the work sample assessment is used as a “hurdle”.
Make sure that you are testing the key competencies of the job particularly if you use a
“hurdle” approach. e.g. don’t test someone’s excel skills if they are not going to use spread-sheets on
the job as they may be eliminated from the selection process on the basis of this.
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Make sure that the assessment helps to separate out those who cannot do the job from those that
can.
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Test the critical competencies in multiple ways e.g. if the job requires a person to be numerate, give
more than one exercise to test numeracy. The reason for this is that sometimes candidates struggle
with a particular question but manage to demonstrate their competency in another question.
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Be clear on what you want to achieve in the measurement of the competency.
o Do you want to identify the top candidates?
o Do you want to identify if applicants can do the job?
o Do you need to know who is the best candidate, the second best etc.?
If you want to be able to differentiate between candidates rather than just know that candidates are
competent, your assessment needs to be designed in a way that gives you this information.
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Development: What exactly do I do?
a)
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Identify the competencies that are best measured by the work sample assessment. Remember that
you don’t need to test everything with the work sample as there will be other methods of selection. A
good rule of thumb is to focus on the technical competencies of the job, the competencies that are
difficult to assess in an interview e.g. computer skills, written communication skills, design skills,
financial skills, numeracy, accuracy etc.
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Collect source materials/scenarios to be used as job related case studies that will help you measure
the competencies identified. Gather information through communication with departmental staff
(position aligned co-worker, line manager, HoD). Gather dummy letters, emails, memos, standard
operating procedures (SoPs) for departmental processes, etc.
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Develop your questions for the assessment. Remember that some questions may be asked verbally of
candidates (e.g. I want you to paint that wall making sure that you follow all the right methods of doing so)
while other assessments will be paper-based (i.e. the person writes their responses).
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Develop the model solutions. Remember to be flexible to different ways of doing tasks. Different methods may
still demonstrate the necessary competence. Also be careful of requiring staff to do it the “Rhodes way”.
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Develop the assessment grid. Below is an example.
a.Competencies
b)
b. Evidence of competency
c)
c. Questions/
d. Rating
e. Weighting
f. Comments
exercises used
(Knowledge, Skills and
Attributes)
Computer
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literacy: able to work with
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a word processor
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Excellent
Able to draft correspondence
Able to create tables
Able to open other files and use
these and save these appropriately
Able to create own folder
Questions 1, 3
and
5
of
assessment
a) These are the competencies that you are assessing. These are the competencies in the job profile.
b) This is the evidence that you are looking for in the exercises.
c) This shows which questions are measuring what competencies. Remember that multiple questions can test the
same competencies.
d) Decide on a rating scale. See below.
e) Decide on the weighting of competencies e.g. H, M, L or a percentage of the job
f) Write any comments that may give insight into the assessment of the candidate.
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A pro-forma of this is available from your HR Generalist.
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Decide on rating scale. The two main ways of rating are either
(a) competency model: competent or not yet competent, or
(b) a differentiating model: rating candidates on a likert scale (5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 where 5 represents “excellent”). If
you wish to use a likert scale, you must be clear on what evidence means a 5 versus a 4 versus a 3 etc.
If you wish to use the differentiating model, you are advised to use a 3 point scale as follows:
 3: superior demonstration of competency
 2: adequate demonstration of competency
 1: inadequate demonstration of competency
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Send this to your HR Generalist for feedback and the quality check. Once you have received feedback, update
and revised accordingly. The checklist that the generalist will use is available in Appendix 1.
Administration: What exactly do I do?
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Make sure that you have provided the HR Generalist with the following electronically:
o A copy of the informed consent form (see Appendix 2)
o A copy of the instructions for applicants
o A copy of all material for applicants e.g. any spread-sheets or documents that they will work with
o Clear instructions of what the HR Generalist needs to do e.g. if loading of documents onto computers
needs to take place.
Once loaded, it is advised that you check that this is accurate.
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Liaise with the HR Generalist as regards whether you need to be available during the assessment process. If the
assessment is a practical one e.g. cooking, painting, you will need to be present. If the assessment is computer
based or paper based, you don’t need to be present.
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The HR Generalist will do the actual administration of the test if it is computer or paper-based.
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If you do the administration, you are required to get the candidate to complete the informed consent
documentation. See Appendix 2.
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Assessment: What exactly do I do?
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Once the applicants have completed the assessment and where relevant, the HR Generalist will get the
completed work to you. This will either be in the printed format or electronically, as requested by you.
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You then need to mark the assessments using the assessment grid.
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If the assessment is a practical assessment, you will mark the applicants after the completion of the various
task/s. You are encouraged to have at least 2 assessors as this provides a more objective opinion.
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Produce one assessment grid per applicant. See Appendix 3.
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Where the assessments are a hurdle, advise the HR Generalist of which applicants are to proceed to the
next phase of the assessment. The HR Generalist will contact the successful and unsuccessful applicants
and advise them accordingly.
Follow-up with the applicant in the interview:
What exactly do I do?
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It is often the case, that one wants to ask the applicants how they experienced the assessment and to probe
how they believed they fared. This is often a good reflection of the candidates’ ability to reflect on their own
level of competence. In professional jobs, this is important.
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At other times, one may want to establish from an applicant what the thinking was behind approaching a
question in particular way. This gives one insight into why the applicant followed a particular course of action.
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At other times, one may want to find out why a candidate did not fare well on a particular assessment.
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These explorations are done by the assessors of the work sample assessment, in the interview.
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Feedback to the Committee: What exactly do I do?
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Typically the assessment data is presented to the committee after the interview phase but before the discussion
about candidates commences. it is not advisable to present the findings before the interview because the
interview is then NOT an independent set of data that can be used to validate or refute the work sample
assessment results. The quality of your selection process is improved through triangulation (using independent
sources of information).
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You can provide a copy of each assessment grid for each candidate to the Committee. You can highlight the
strengths and weaknesses and raise any concerns.
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Sometimes the members become “seduced” by the candidate in a selection interview and like to ignore the
assessment results. It is important that the Committee is reminded to focus on ALL selection data.
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Remember that the discussion of candidates must focus on their merit relative to the competencies of the job.
Common selection errors include the “halo” or “horns” effects. This is when some data is allowed to create the
overall impression of the applicant, either good (halo effect) or bad (horns effect).
Now what?
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You are encouraged to reflect on the effectiveness of the work sample assessment and update it
where necessary. Do this soon after the selection process, while the development and assessment is
still fresh in your mind.
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With the successful applicant, once they start, share with them their assessment results and use this as
a basis to identify development needs from the start of their employment.
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HR Checklist for Work Sample Assessments
COMPETENCIES
1
The competencies being measured: Are these in the job profile for the post?
2
Can the work sample validly and reliability measure these competencies? Iis there a better assessment tool?
3
Do the exercises designed measure the required competencies? Is there a clear link between these?
4
Is the competency operationalized in terms of the evidence being looked for in the assessment exercises?
5
Does the work sample focus on the most critical competencies?
EXERCISES
6
Are the exercises used typical of the kind of work done in this job?
7
Does any exercise require Rhodes knowledge? If yes, is this fair to all applicants?
8
Does any exercise require departmental knowledge? If yes, is this fair to all applicants?
9
Are the instructions clear and unambiguous?
10
Are the exercise/s clearly worded? If relevant is the English appropriate to the level of job?
11
Is the time needed for the entire assessment clear to the candidate? Is this time allocation reasonable?
12
Is there any “double jeopardy”?
13
Are critical competencies measured more than once?
ASSESSMENT
14
Does the assessment grid can the relevant competencies from the job profile?
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Does the assessment grid specify the evidence needed from the exercises?
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Does the assessment grid specify the rating to be used? Competent/Not yet competent or a likert scale?
17
Are the weightings for the competencies specified?
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Does the assessment grid have an overall assessment and identify strengths and areas of development?
19
Is there a model solution?
STRATEGY
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Hurdle approach: are the right competencies focused on?
21
Compensation approach: is this the right approach?
22
Competence or differentiation assessment: is the assessment appropriate to achieve these aims?
PROFESSIONALISM
23
Is the material presented professionally?
24
Is the informed consent form included and updated?
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INFORMED CONSENT FORM
Work Sample Assessment
a. At Rhodes University the assessment of occupational competence is a requirement for the
selection process for a number of posts.
b. The purpose of the assessment is to offer candidates and employees the opportunity to
demonstrate the knowledge, skills, attributes and values required by the relevant job
profile. Assessment tools measure whether candidates meet the requirements of a specific
position. This particular assessment will focus on the technical skills required for the post for
which you have applied.
c. This outcome of this assessment may determine whether or not you go through to the next
stage of the selection process, the interview.
d. Rhodes University requires your consent before proceeding with the assessment process.
e. You may choose to not be assessed or withdraw your participation without explanation at
any point during the assessment. Should you however choose not to complete the
assessment, you forfeit the opportunity to demonstrate your competence. This means that
you cannot proceed to the next stage of the selection process.
f. The Human Resources at Rhodes University ensures that:
 Assessors are suitably trained;
 Assessment instruments are culture and gender fair;
 Assessments are valid in that they measure competencies required on the job;
 Guidelines for responsible assessment are followed.
g. The responsibilities of the Test Administrator include:
 Establishing rapport with candidates and putting them at ease;
 Providing clear instructions;
 Administering instruments properly.
h. Responsibilities of Assessors include:
 Accurately scoring and interpreting results;
 Accurately reporting the findings to members of the selection committee;
 Storing the assessment data;
i. Your responsibilities include:
 Reading instructions carefully;
 Requesting clarification prior to the start of the assessment process;
 Working as efficiently as possible;
 Demonstrating your competence.
i. The responsibilities of the Rhodes University’s HR Division include:
 Managing complaints, queries, disputes or appeals relating to the outcomes of
assessment and selection process.
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I, (enter name and surname below)
Surname
Name
Identity or
passport number
a. agree to participate in an assessment conducted under the auspices of the Rhodes University HR
Division;
b. understand that my participation is voluntary;
c. have received a clear and comprehensive explanation of the:
 reasons why I am being assessed;
 the nature of the assessment methods and procedures;
 how the results will be used;
d. give permission that my results may be made available to:
 the Assessors so that they may assess the results of my assessment;
 the Rhodes University Selection Committee;
 the person in the HR Division who administered this assessment tool;
e. give permission, should I be appointed in the position applied for, that my results may be available
to my Manager to be used to assess my development needs.
f. accept that the Assessors may not be able to explain all aspects of the assessment to me until the
assessment has been completed.
Signature of candidate
:
Date:
………../…………./201
:
…………………………………………………………
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Rhodes University Assessment
Assistant to Director/Deputy Director:
HR: Competency Assessment Grid for Work Sample Test
Name: __________________________________
Date of assessment: _________________________
Rating scale for individual competencies:
4 = above average; 3 = average and suitable for appointment, 2 = below average competency and could be
developed, 1 = not competent
Competencies
(Knowledge,
Tested by:
Rating:
Comments
Skills
and Attributes)
Excellent
Computer
literacy: able to work
with a word processor
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Advanced
ability
to
communicate
in
English and reporting
writing skills
Excellent
administrative
(good
org
skills
and
planning) and shows
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initiative
manage
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multiple demands and

Able
to
work under pressure
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
Able to draft correspondence
Able to create tables
Able to open other files and use
these and save these
appropriately
Able to create own folder
Words use in correct way
Correct grammar, spelling,
punctuation
Appropriate sentence structure
Meaning is clear
Correct layout of letters
Appropriate diary management
Completed all important tasks in
in-basket
Was able to priorities
Followed through on very urgent
items to make sure these did not
fall through cracks
Identified follow through and
made plans for own absence
Informed manager of what had
been done/not done
Put documents in order so that
someone coming to her desk
would be able to locate
documents etc.
Set up own diary system in
relation to manager’s diary in
order to have reminders and
follow-ups
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Ability to network and
access
required
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information, ability to
evaluate
quality
of
Was efficient in methodologies
used to get through the work.
Identifies not only immediate
work but other related work to be
done
Project plan methodology was
sound (alignment with dates of
committees, included relevant
processes and relevant people,
identified gaps to follow up on
with manager), considered
implementation issues (e.g.
communication, training)
Able to access website and get
necessary information
Able to discern which information
is appropriate – only relevant
information included
information
with an attention for


detail

Conceptual ability to

High level of accuracy
learn quickly and grasp
what is needed in

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terms of information.
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Service
commitment
ethic,
to


continuous
improvement

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Errors minimal
Documents presented
professionally
Follow through on tasks identified
Instructions provided where
followed
Able to grasp key issues in tasks
Able to think laterally with regards
to tasks i.e. did not only follow
instruction but could think of
related and other issues
Project plan was conceptually
sound and identified relevant
issues
Response to complaint was
appropriate
Able to differentiate between own
issues and that of others
Referral of problem to the correct
source was done
Preparedness to explore if there
was an error
Concern with service was
demonstrated in tasks in general,
evidence of service to the
manager in making his/her life
easier
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Overall rating for in basket and numerical assessment:
4= above average on competencies. To go through to interview stage.
3 = average. To go through to interview stage.
2 = below average in multiple competencies. Not suitable for the post at this stage. Regret.
1 = below average and unsuitable for post at this point in time. Regret
Strengths of the candidate include:
Areas of development of the candidate include:
Name of assessor: ______________________________
Signature: __________________________
Date: __________________________
Name of assessor: ______________________________
Signature: __________________________
Date: __________________________
Name of HR Generalist: ___________________________
Signature: __________________________
Date: __________________________
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